Tara & James Roaming Planet Earth: Costa Rica

Volcano Arenal

It was time to leave South America and head to lush Costa Rica. This little country is all about volcanoes, beaches, rainforests and of course the wildlife. Although smaller than Tasmania in size, it contains 5% of the worlds biodiversity.

We started our trip by visiting the Volcano Arenal. Unfortunately we didn't get to see any red lava but we still got a nice view of the volcano over the lake.

Lake Arenal

Next stop was the cloud forest of Monteverde. Here we saw the forest canopy via a zip line. A nice way to see it if you have a guide doing the braking for you, which I did after freaking out a bit on one of the first lines. The much braver James also did a Tarzan swing 50 m high.

James getting ready for the Tarzan swing

Monteverde Cloud Forest

From here, we headed to a small town on the pacific coast next to the Manuel Antonio national park. This park had a picture perfect beach that included cheeky, food stealing monkeys, laid back sloths in the trees and sun baking iguanas on the sand.

Sloth at Manuel Antonio national park

From the Pacific to the Caribbean, it was time to soak in some Rastafarian lifestyle in the town of Puerto Viejo. Like the inhabitants of the town, we just relaxed here, enjoying the sand and sun.

Up north on the Caribbean coast is Tortuguero, named after the 25,000 turtles that choose the particular beach to nest at. The place was originally settled to hunt the turtles but now it is all about protecting them and showing them to tourists. It is a tiny town accessible by boat or air only. We were lucky enough to go on a night walk and see several turtles on the sand including one in the process of laying her eggs. We weren't allowed to take photos of the turtles, however we did get pictures of some other wildlife we saw here.